Update

Successful data warehousing projects needs careful planning

Ashok Ekbote, Country Manager, Teradata India said that data wareshousing (DW) projects don't necessarily have to be exhaustive and expensive undertakings. A little bit of careful planning can ensure success. Rajendra Chaudhary, discussed some finer points of DW implementations

Ashok Ekbote, Country Manager, Teradata India

DW implementations are typically exhaustive, time consuming affairs. So what should be mantra for successful deployment?

It's not a given that DW projects are exhausting and time-consuming and they don't have to be like that either. Companies can face a problem when they don't plan ahead of such initiatives. Before embarking on any such projects they have to take into account some basic elements such as—ensuring that their staff is skilled, their consultants are qualified, and most of all that they have the support of business users and the senior management.

Additionally when selecting a vendor, companies should evaluate the vendor's ability to design, build, implement and architect a DW with minimal issues. They must also try to see if their methodology has been proven over time. They must see to it that the vendor has experienced project managers, industry consultants, tools, processes, and skilled professional services staff for the task.

In your experience, is it difficult for user organizations to find the necessary in-house talent for such endeavors?

Sometimes organizations can find it difficult to get all the required elements in-house and in such situations they have to look for additional talent elsewhere. This is where a vendor's consultants can help. Additionally it is vendors' responsibility to offer certification, education, and training to help the customer to boost its own capabilities.

CIOs often complain that end users find it difficult to accept DW because they do not understand how it applies to their business and everyday jobs. Is it true?

First, if the CIO is leading the charge on the DW, there can be an issue if end-users haven't been part of the business planning process. Similarly, there can be an issue if the end-user community hasn't been trained sufficiently. Therefore it is essential that both these factors are paid due attention in a DW project.

Further CIOs can get greater acceptance by ensuring business sponsorship and involvement from project justification, to acquisition, to installation and get the DW operational.

Is it true that a good number of DW initiatives often result in failures? What are some of the more common pitfalls user organizations should avoid?

This is an erroneous assumption. It stems from a few inaccurate theories that were propagated several years ago by a handful of analysts. As a discipline DW has really come of age and a lot of myths associated with the technology have been debunked over the course of last few years. Our own experience in deploying hundreds of successful DW projects bears a clear testimony to this fact.

As far as avoiding some DW pitfalls is concerned, organizations should ensure that they have all of the following components in place before embarking on a project—executive support, goals/mission for the DW, project plans, effective architecture, data management practices, data quality, trained staff, suitable data models, end-user involvement, and a realistic ROI model.

— Rajendra Chaudhary